There's a homeowner in your town right now who just signed a purchase agreement. They're sitting at a kitchen table in a house they don't own yet, making a list.

Roof looks rough. Deck needs replacing. Electrical panel is original to 1987. Basement bathroom is a renovation project waiting to happen.

They're going to hire someone. Probably more than one someone. And they're going to hire them in the next 30 to 90 days.

That list is sitting on Realtor.ca right now — in the recently-sold section. Almost nobody in the trades is looking at it.

Why a Recently-Sold Listing Is the Warmest Lead You'll Find

Think about the difference between someone browsing Zillow at 11pm and someone who just closed on a house.

The browser is dreaming. The buyer has committed. They've signed documents. They've handed over a down payment. They're moving in three weeks and they have a list of things that need to get done before their family arrives.

A filed building permit says someone has a project. A recently-sold listing says someone has a project, a move-in date, and a wallet that's already open.

New homeowners are one of the highest-converting customer types for almost every trade. Here's why:

They don't have a contractor yet. They're new. They don't know who to call. They're actively asking neighbours and googling.
They've just seen every problem with the house. The inspection report is fresh. They know exactly what needs fixing.
They have urgency. Move-in date is a real deadline. Quotes need to happen fast.
They're not price-shopping the same way. They're looking for someone reliable who can show up. That's you.

Where to Find Recently-Sold Listings in Canada

The main source is Realtor.ca — the MLS database run by CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association). It shows sold listings publicly, usually with a short delay after closing.

Here's how to work it:

Go to realtor.ca and search your service area
Filter by "Sold" — you'll see closed transactions from the past 30–60 days
Filter by property type (residential), year built, and price range that matches your target customer
Note the address, the sold date, and any listing details that hint at the house's condition

For US-based trades, Zillow and Homes.com work the same way — filter by "Recently Sold" in your target zip code. Homes.com in particular lets you filter by year built, which is gold if you're a roofer, electrician, or HVAC tech looking at older stock.

Some municipalities also publish deed transfers publicly. In Ontario, you can access land transfer data through Teranet. In many US counties, deed transfers are posted on the county assessor's website within days of closing — free and public.

How to Use This for Your Trade (Specific Examples)

This isn't a generic "get leads" play. Here's how different trades should use recently-sold data:

Roofers

Filter for homes built before 1995 in your area. A 30-year-old asphalt shingle roof is either done or close to it. New owners who just got a home inspection are holding a piece of paper that says "roof — end of life." They need a quote. Call or knock this week, before they find someone else.

Electricians

Older homes = older panels. Knob-and-tube wiring. Ungrounded outlets. If a home sold in the $300K–$500K range and was built before 1980, the inspection almost certainly flagged electrical. New owners are motivated to fix it — insurance companies sometimes require it.

HVAC

Look for homes that sold in spring or fall — the shoulder seasons when no one tested the furnace or AC during the showing. New owners often don't discover the system is failing until the first real cold snap. Get there before that happens. Offer a pre-season inspection as the intro.

Plumbers

Older homes with original plumbing. Homes that sat on the market a long time (inspection-flagged issues often include plumbing). Multi-bathroom older homes where the previous owner deferred maintenance. The inspection report is your lead qualification — you just need to get to the owner first.

Landscapers and Deck Builders

New owners almost always want to put their stamp on the yard. The old deck is usually the first thing to go. Check sold listings in spring — buyers who closed in March or April are about to start calling for landscaping quotes. Get to them in February and March before the rush hits.

Finding the Owner's Contact Info

The sold listing gives you the address. Now you need a name and a number.

A few real ways to do this:

Canada 411 (canada411.ca) — search by address to find listed phone numbers for the new owner
Municipal property records — most Canadian cities update their property ownership databases within 60–90 days of a sale. Search your city's property tax lookup tool.
Door knock — still works. Especially in smaller towns. Show up, introduce yourself, leave a flyer with a specific offer. "I noticed this sold recently — we do roof inspections for new homeowners, no charge."
Buyer's agent — the real estate agent who represented the buyer is often more helpful than people expect. A quick call — "Hey, I'm a local [trade], do you know if the new owners are looking for quotes on X?" — works surprisingly often in small markets.

The Problem With Doing This Manually

Reading this and thinking "this is a great idea" is easy. Actually doing it consistently — checking Realtor.ca three times a week, filtering, finding contact info, making calls — that's the hard part.

Most owner-operators read stuff like this, try it for a week, get busy on a job, and drop it. The pipeline dries up. Then it's November and you're wondering why work slowed down.

Lead gen only works when it's consistent. That means it needs to happen whether you're on a roof in Barrie or under a crawl space in Moncton.

The opportunity is real. The execution is the bottleneck.

Recently-sold listings, building permit filings, job-change signals, neighbourhood-level Nextdoor posts — all of it is public. All of it is actionable. None of it happens automatically unless you build a system around it or let someone else run the system for you.

Night Manager finds and scores leads like these every day — recently sold homes, permit filings, local signals — and drops 5–10 of the best ones in your inbox every morning. First 10 are free. nightmanager.xyz.